


Just a Game

by daphnerunning



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Glen teaches young Gilbert to play piano, Jack gives Vincent a lesson in chess, and in people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Game

Gilbert has real talent.

 

Vincent can hear it, even listening with just half an ear as he tries to concentrate on his next move, not wanting to disappoint. He follows the melody easily, even as he picks up a rook, sliding it forward a few spaces.

 

Master Jack beams at him, resting his head on one loosely curled hand. “Oho, you’ve put me in quite a bind. Why did you move there when my knight was so vulnerable?” He moves a pawn forward, long fingers moving with purpose and precision.

 

“B flat, Gilbert.”

 

“Sorry, Master.”

 

“Don’t be sorry, just do it again properly.”

 

Vincent brings his feet up onto his chair, raising up onto his knees to see the board better. “I wasn’t after your knight,” he says with a frown, and ignores the pawn, skirting around it with his queen. 

 

“No? It’s a threat. Now you’re after my rooks, hmm?” Jack’s other knight skips out of danger, capturing a black bishop.

 

Vincent shakes his head, hair falling into his face as he tries to focus when Gilbert is playing so beautifully. He always plays better when Master Glen sits with him on the piano bench, one hand resting between his shoulderblades to correct his posture. “No, Master Jack,” he says dutifully. His knight edges around a pawn, taking a rook nonetheless.

 

“You’re not after them? Even when you’re capturing them?”

 

It’s a test, Vincent’s sure. Everything is. It’s been better here, the last few weeks, but they’ve been in pretty houses for longer than this before it’s fallen apart, before. He hesitates, hand on his rook, looking up at bright green eyes.

 

Jack grins at him. “Go on, then.”

 

“I…”

 

“I won’t be angry. Go ahead.”

 

Vincent slides his rook sideways, swallowing hard as Gilbert finishes the last bars of his practice sheet. “Checkmate.”

 

Jack bursts out laughing, reaching out an elegant hand to topple his own white king. “Glen, how long until Gilbert is better than you? I think we might have more than we bargained for with these two.”

 

“He has a lot of work to do.” After a begrudging second, the man acknowledges, “He has a good ear, though.”

 

Vincent can hear the trembling gratitude in Gilbert’s voice as he says, “Thank you, Master!” as if that one phrase is worth as much as Master Jack saying he’s a prodigy. 

 

Master Jack leans forward, spinning the board around as he sets it up again. “Why didn’t you go after my knights, Vincent?”

 

“That’s not the game.” Vincent grabs a few discarded pawns, setting them to rights without looking, eyes trained on the way his brother’s hands move over the black and white keys. “You go after the King. That’s the only way to win. That’s the only reason for playing. None of the other pieces matter.”

 

Jack’s smile lights up the room as he sets the queen in her place, surrounded by her onyx minions. “You think so, hmm?”

 

“Of course.”

 

On the piano bench, Gilbert reaches the end of the page, perfectly in time. Glen doesn’t even pause before flipping back to the beginning. “Good. Again.”

 

Master Jack’s eyes are bright, intense as he leans forward, voice almost a whisper. “Let me tell you a secret. The king means nothing.”

 

“But…”

 

“The king only matters if you decide he does.” The smile changes a little, grows crooked, green eyes flashing. “Watch.”

 

Vincent plays the game perfectly. He  _knows_  he does, but every one of Master Jack’s moves is strange, taking him by surprise, messing up every reasonable strategy he can think of, until he’s nearly in tears. The white king’s crown hits the board as Vincent topples it, more shaken than he should be by the simple act of losing a game. “I don’t understand. What…”

 

Jack plucks a piece—Vincent’s  _own_  piece, his white queen—from the board, holding it up. “This was my most important piece. I would have sacrificed anything to save it.”

 

“That doesn’t make sense!”

 

“No? Whose king is still standing?”

 

“Jack, you’re not playing fair,” Master Glen calls, reaching forward to flip a page. “It’s only his second lesson. Wrists up, Gilbert.”

 

“Vincent can handle it, Master,” his brother says quietly, still focused on his own pages. “He’s really smart.”

 

Vincent feels himself swell at the praise, even as he stares at the board, playing the last game back in his head, eyes flicking forward and back, tracing over every move he’d made, every move Master Jack had made, looking for  _answers_. It makes sense, sort of. It makes an unpredictable, twisted, clever sense. “How do you choose which piece it’ll be?”

 

“Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that your opponent doesn’t know.”

 

It makes sense, sort of. Vincent doesn’t even realize that he’s gripping the board so hard his knuckles are white until his concentration is broken by long fingers ruffling his hair, and Master Jack’s laughter. “Relax. It’s only a game. There’s always the next round.”

 

Vincent nods, determined. “Best of three?”

 

Master Glen turns the music back to the beginning, and Jack’s long-fingered hands set up the board as he grins. “Why stop there? I told you, Vincent. There’s  _always_  a next round.”

 

He leans forward, one of the very, very few people who’d never been afraid to meet Vincent’s eyes. “Don’t worry about losing. Give more than everything you have, and win  _next_  time.”

 

Gilbert’s fingers land perfectly on the keys, and Jack pushes a pawn forward. “Your move.”


End file.
